The final arc. I did like seeing a hero whose family knew his identity. It allowed him to do things like fly his mom and dad around for fun. Having powers ought to be fun after all. Too many times heroes just act tragic and mope around.
And speaking of the story: Nova and aged hero Comet team up.
They fight the invulnerable Diamond Head and brain-in-a-robot Dr. Sun (from Tomb of Dracua), who eventually lead him to the master of their evil: Sphinx. To acquaint readers with Dr. Sun’s origin, Gene Colan makes a guest art appearance for a couple pages to re-tell Sun’s origin:
We see the cast of Tomb of Dracula at the scene when Dr. Sun and Dracula were in an imploding castle, and we see Sun’s brain lying on the floor.
Dr. Sun wants Nova’s energy so that he can travel through space, which is how they get in front of Sphinx.
And at the time, Sphinx was part of the Skrulls’ war against the Xandarians. It leads right into Fantastic Four #206.
I also liked how they redid his logo for the cover of the last issue: He’s gone!
Speaking of leaving, soon after this Wolfman left Marvel to go to DC, where he became one of the most legendary, important writers of all time. He learned to write at Marvel by cranking out subpar runs on Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and here on Nova. Then he created The New Teen Titans, one of the single most important, highest quality books of the 1980s.